In 1993, SEGA developped the first fully-fledged 3D versus beat'em-up game, Virtua Fighter 1 by Yu Suzuki, VF series have been widely accepted and also became mainstream in this area. In particular, SEGA introduced Virtua Fighter 2 (since1994), which created an unprecedented sensation in all over the world. Virtua Fighter’s best achievement is laying the foundation of passing down the concept of ‘Two-Alternative Forced Choice, 2AFC, between mid attacks and throws’ to posterity. It seems likely that the classical theory of Virtua Fighter is now out of date, but the position of importance is not change through now that 20 years have passed.

Aside from the superiority in 2AFC, considerable research efforts have been directed toward new systems such as Throw Escape, Defensive Move and Fall Recovery. Thus, almost recent works, including our previous articles, have been designed as highly advanced playing guides for Virtua Fighter 4 and 5 refined by Daichi Katagiri (since2002). These researches have made old works look very dated in style and content, in which these guide lines published in these past few years expose gaps between recent players skill and highly practiced senior players knowledge. This playing guide named ‘2AFC Approach’ is intended to fill some of these gaps.

The ‘2AFC Approach’ introduces important theories of Virtua Fighter, to help readers to design their own strategy. There are 100 chapters that are classified into a three types, basic principle chapters, practice chapters and general strategy chapter: It alternates chapters presenting classical theories with strategy chapters that put the new techniques. One source of new techniques is articles that the authors gave in our previous works. Also, due to the nature of commentary and explanation, contents that emulated previous compositions with some revisions, especially ‘Wiki of VFD’[1]and ‘VF5FSレタスメモ’[2], would appear here and there. The chapters on practices are programmed articles asking for a degree of interaction with the reader who are expected to obtain skills while reading.

The first 50 chapters will mainly describe basic principles and strategies established by around Virtua Fighter 3 (since1996). These chapters are so important that all players need to understand how control these issues. However, you might be surprised to know that you should gain a performance in the top 30%[3] (up to 1 Star–Warrior, Meijin in Japanese) by using only these classical theories: This is mainly caused by the gaps mentioned above.

The subsequent 50 chapters will discuss principles and strategies developed from Virtua Fighter 4 (since 2001), including Virtua Fighter 5 (since2006). These chapters would improve your skills dramatically. However, so many players are always on the intermediate, but most of them never become senior. Probably, they have neglected the points of classical theories mentioned in the first 50 chapters. Our message is that:

you have to maintain a proper balance between development and conservation.

If so, ‘2AFC Approach' would make you being the top 10%[3] in whole players (at least 1 Star–Assassin, Chisho in Japanese).

We have gathered for this playing guide has reinforced our attempt to discuss reasons for choosing one technique rather than another, which would enliven articles and make it more interesting for players. We hope ‘2AFC Approach’ will prove of progressive value as players of Virtua Fighter develop their careers, and wish to complete ‘3AFC Approach’ shortly after the publication of the main text.